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That would cut your income by 75% also. Leaving you with a huge border and nothing to defend it with.

Think about this for a second. You've cut enemy cities by the same number. The ratio of troops to cities is not affected. You have fewer soldiers and fewer cities, and the AI has fewer soldiers and fewer cities.

Yeah, the ratio of troops per city would not change, but the ratio of troops per hex would. And this means: bigger border, less to defend it with. Even if the enemy attacks you with less force, you still need something to be there to defend your border with. Which means running left and right all the time.

Remember that most cities will be generic, unless there happens to be resources around. You get to build a range of buildings that even without special resources to build upon, you can create a good city.

ICS definately dominates the early game but there's a 'best of both worlds' I've been trying to nail down with it. It comes from destroying my own towns. I setup 'real cities' that will exist later and 'waypoint cities' that will be blown to pieces later when the real cities expand. It's not great though, I'm still working out the kinks.

Part of the issue is the way population builds. If you set yourself up for top-tier (3 out, 10+) cities, it will take you forever to get there, leaving huge holes in your supply lines. The second tier to third tier is where I'm still trying to figure out the optimal pathing.

If you set yourself up for top-tier (3 out, 10+) cities, it will take you forever to get there, leaving huge holes in your supply lines. The second tier to third tier is where I'm still trying to figure out the optimal pathing.

Second tier, as you call it, is the optimal setup. It will take you around 50 turns to expand to third tier. More then a hundred to just fill in the 14 hexes with buildings. And I think somebody said there is a pop cap on cities.

Second tier, as you call it, is the optimal setup. It will take you around 50 turns to expand to third tier. More then a hundred to just fill in the 14 hexes with buildings. And I think somebody said there is a pop cap on cities.

Yes. Well it's a soft cap, because once you go above 13 population, your default growth goes into negative (like -11.8 or something close). You can grow your city to 15 or 16 with population growth spell (one that adds 40 growth per turn).

So if you have two tiles of clear space surrounding the city, that's plenty enough for all of your buildings.

Second tier, as you call it, is the optimal setup. It will take you around 50 turns to expand to third tier. More then a hundred to just fill in the 14 hexes with buildings. And I think somebody said there is a pop cap on cities.

Yeah, you're right. As I was fighting with it I realized that and just stopped banging my head on the wall, but you beat me to it. 18 hexes for a second tier city is more than enough for any city you can currently build afaik (I haven't played with all the god spells yet). Even one trapped by the sea is good until level 9 unless you stick it on a penninsula.

Cities are very important, but there are a few things that are not as obvious at first glance.

1) Any improvement makes movement on that tile cost half a movement point as opposed to its original value.

2) If a tile falls within a city's jurisdiction, that tile may not fall under any other city's jurisdiction even in the event the jurisdictions would overlap (at least, I have not found a way to cede control of the tile as of yet).

I have found that the optimal city placement for development is five tiles away in a straight line from another city (leaving four spaces between the two cities). This allows you to create a path with your improvements from one city to the other for movement while also allowing enough space for development (a few tiles may be stolen with a third tier advancement, but it's largely inconsequential). When each city is at tier 2, only three tiles will be unusable and, when one city turns into tier 3, only one (which will be usable when both are tier 3).

For a more defensive formation, you will want four tiles away (three spaces between the two cities) with the understanding that it'll get to be a little cramped. The reason for placing the cities at four tiles is twofold; nothing can be within your sphere of influence without being in range of your castle's attack, and to set up a magic turret via the first city two squares away from the second, allowing for a defense against melee attackers (primarily wild units) as well as the opportunity to strike back at the castle should it fall into enemy hands. This will somewhat gimp your economy when each city gets really big, but it also has the benefit of leaving no tile outside of your jurisdiction.

The reason for making sure each second city is in a straight line from the first (as opposed to bending) is to optimize the space -- if you continue the same pattern, you can create a total of six cities (one in each direction) from each city, and each will be the same distance from each other. It gets a bit trickier if you mix and match (4 away here, 5 away there), but if you only do 4-away or 5-away, *every* city will be exactly three or four tiles from each other, in every direction.

At this point, it's not so much a matter of "Is city rushing a good idea?" to "How do I want to efficiently space out and utilize my mass of cities?". If you spam cities willy-nilly, you *won't* do as well as somebody who puts careful planning into their city placement, even if you both hold the same number of cities or even the same number of cities with the same improvements. *How* you place your cities will also influence in which stage of the game you will be strongest in relation to everyone else.

If you don't want to have a huge amount of cities, just play on a smaller map, is what I say. That may sound callous and seem as if I'm avoiding the issue of city spamming, but I think everyone has a misconception of map size as it relates to Warlock. It's not so much an indication of turns as it is the eventual size of each empire, with all the micromanagement and city spam that comes with it.

Also, one thing to slowing down expansion is to have MORE HORRIBLE AND NASTY MONSTERS protecting their ancient lands. So you need high end units to get rid of them first.

I fully support this idea. Bigger monsters would certainly curtail city expansion and it would be a lot of fun trying to take them down. If they release mod tools this could be possible. I would love to see dragons on the main world.

I fully support this idea. Bigger monsters would certainly curtail city expansion and it would be a lot of fun trying to take them down. If they release mod tools this could be possible. I would love to see dragons on the main world.

After all the effort the Great Ruler went to in order to save us from their scourge? Next you'll be demanding that every market you build have a chance of spawning hostile trolls.

How about the more cities you build, the larger the decrease in population growth all your cities get? This would create a trade off and thus provide some strategic choice to empire building.

I'm not sure what the formula would be, but it would need to be balanced appropriately so that you need to think a bit before building that next city because it will slow down the growth of your existing empire.

How about the more cities you build, the larger the decrease in population growth all your cities get? This would create a trade off and thus provide some strategic choice to empire building.

I'm not sure what the formula would be, but it would need to be balanced appropriately so that you need to think a bit before building that next city because it will slow down the growth of your existing empire.

The problem with new mechanics like this is that the AI has no idea how to handle them. Currently, the AI just tries to spam cities, and it's fine that it does this because that's a strong strategy in this game. I take it as a given that the AI is going to build as many cities as it can, and I'd rather see a fix implemented that doesn't make the AI play a dumber game than it already does. If it can choke out its growth by building too many cities, it's going to do that unless you teach it otherwise. Fixing this issue doesn't need to involve an AI rewrite, just a change in minimum city building distance. A boost to city borders to go along with that would be nice, but isn't absolutely necessary.

Velorien is referring to that's how it was in Majesty: Fantasy Kingdom sim - building Markets increased the chances of Trolls spawning, just like building in general caused Sewers to appear which caused Giant Rats and Ratment to spawn.

Velorien is referring to that's how it was in Majesty: Fantasy Kingdom sim - building Markets increased the chances of Trolls spawning, just like building in general caused Sewers to appear which caused Giant Rats and Ratment to spawn.

Interesting, I may have to get Majesty. I actually like that idea of monsters spawning because of certain buildings being built. Say you build on a gold mine and that angers the local dragon.